Lubna Salim and Harsh Chhaya (top) in Salim Arif’s Hum-safar; the actors (above) from Clown Lear in a promotional shot — ASIAN

The much-awaited 11th edition of the Vodafone Odeon annual theatre festival is back in the culture capital, much to the relief of its discerning playbuffs. With one English, one Hindi and two Bengali plays foraying into the Odeon manch this time, the overall package looks indeed impressive for all theatre aficionados to check out and enjoy the evening performances. Known stalwarts from the

Bengali stage — Soumitra Mitra, Koushik Sen, Raja Bhattacharya, Asit Basu, Kanchan Mullick, Biplab Bandopadhyay and theatre practitioner-cum-state education minister Bratya Basu will form an integral part of this year’s playfest.
Starting from December 17 to continue till December 21, the prestigious theatrical extravaganza will feature two outstation and three local productions. The inaugural drama Clown Lear is helmed by well-known screen actor and theatre director Rajat Kapoor and will be performed by eminent actor Atul Kumar. It is a play, reworked on the everlasting Elizabethan poet-playwright William Shakespeare’s widely read tragedy King Lear. While the closing play is titled Hum Safar and notably comes as the third part after the internationally acclaimed Tumhari Amrita, a famous epistolary play enacted between the seasoned Hindi film actors Farooq Sheikh and Shabana Azmi, and Aapki Soniya, another brilliant reading piece delivered by the veteran Sheikh with Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre by his side. Hum Safar is directed by Salim Arif, and along with Clown Lear, both have been imported from Mumbai. On the other hand, titles like The Great New Life by Raja Bhattacharya, Ashalin by Biplab Bandyopadhyay and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s popular piece Notir Puja by the young, accomplished theatre director Koushik Sen are the three domestic inputs from Bengal’s modern group theatre to premiere at this year’s Odeon stage roster.
Local production The Great New Life will hit the stage on the second day of the festive schedule. The lead cast comprises Asit Basu, Parthasarathi Deb and Biswanath Basu. The drama derives its basic idea from Tagore’s verse Juta Abishkar, which highlights the poets’ views on racial apathy. The third play is Bratya Basu’s Ashalin, directed by Biplab Bandopadhyay. Penned by Basu, the hard-hitting script tries to see the problem of miscommunication between two or more individuals, especially when they attempt to convey a thought process through a medium of words or a sentence. Day four of Odeon will see Koushik Sen’s Notir Puja, performed by Arpita Chatterjee, Kanchan Mullick, Ditipriya Sarkar, et al. Last but not the least, this concluding play steered by Salim Arif is a modern-day take on the relationship of a couple and its search for emotional stability. The cast includes reputed actors Harsh Chayya and Lubna Salim.
At the formal launch of the festival, Saurav Mukherjee, the telecom major’s chief operating officer in Kolkata and West Bengal, shares, “Theatre is an integral part of Bengal’s culture calendar and our company has always been involved with local events in different parts of the country to reach out to a larger cross section of audiences and cement our bond with them. Over the years, the Odeon theatre festival has been an attempt to uphold the cultural tastes and legacy of Kolkata; through this initiative, we aim to bring to the city an array of maiden productions to lend its theatre-thirsty community an opportunity to experience and appreciate the finest talents in theatre.”
Koushik Sen’s much sought-after troupe Swapna Sandhani had earlier rendered two of its stage-productions namely, Kolkata Electra and Bhoy at the Odeon dramafest. This time, his group is premiering Notir Puja. “It’s a Tagorean subject and a much celebrated piece. But towards the culminating point, we’ve strongly touched upon a contemporary issue. I was deeply inspired by the single-handed struggle of the civil rights and political activist Irom Sharmila Chanu, the “Iron Lady of Manipur”. There are other such sole solitary figures, whose continuous fight against torture, injustice, corruption, violence, massacre, racial discrimination and unfair biases have put their faces and nationality on the world map. Even our freedom movement has witnessed many architects like Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose who could attract many followers on their paths. We have some really tough and dedicated social activists, mass leaders and crusaders fighting for a noble cause around us. And in today’s context, we have names like Vinayak Sen, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahasweta Devi, Medha Patkar and the very current example of Anna Hazare. So there are quite a few real-life references,” he elaborates.
With a string of politically-driven Bengali plays ruling the roost at present, Sen rubbishes the rumour that it is a clear indication of Bengal’s political poriborton in the seat of state-owned power. For instance, Winkle Twinkle, Poshu Khamar (adapted from George Orwell’s allegorical novella Animal Farm), Birpurush, Ruddhasangeet, Dahanante and so on. “Bengali group theatre is eternally political in its content. Their success speaks volumes of their significance on the Bangla natya mancha. You see, politics can’t be an isolated subject, packed up on the shelf in Bengal, as the public is highly politically conscious in this part of the world,” he observes. “The huge amount of illustrious work done in other regional theatre does motivate me from time to time and am also open to dabbling in Hindi as well as English plays.”